


Like Real People Do

by Clementine19



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:34:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clementine19/pseuds/Clementine19
Summary: After months of circling how I want to do this and writing endless dialogues to get a feel for these two, this is my unrepentant TLOU II AU where everything is fine just fine and Joel gets to fall in love and be adored.Molly Kane is my OC;more about her here!Doubleleafdid this gorgeous art of herthat I haven't stopped looking at since receiving.
Relationships: Joel (The Last of Us)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

_Fuck’s sake._

Molly lands on her stomach, wind knocked out of her, howling runner grasping her hair from above before slumping into her knife. She kicks forcefully, pushing the dead weight a good deal further than she’d expected, instantly on her feet and scanning around her.

Straightening on her first appraisal, she freezes upright when a clicker rounds the corner. It’s always upset her that they seem to sniff the air, no vestiges of a nose left, but the jerky mannerism remaining. Thumbing her revolver’s chamber out and shifting her eyes down to it, she confirms it is empty on her first twirl.

The plates of the clicker reverberate off the opposite wall, falling to the ground as if they are styrofoam models. The splatter of blackening human blood paints the window, bathing the hall in a soft orangey glow.

A blond man with a ponytail and warm sherpa jacket turned up at the collar comes into Molly’s view.

She pulls up her pistol and level it at his chest, the bluff settling into her furrowed brows.

He puts his hands up.

“What’re you doing out here alone?”

“Was expecting a trading partner. Guess they got surprised before I got here.”

“Do you stay nearby?” Tommy said, encroaching Wyoming winter apparent in their breath before them.

“Not…particularly.”

The even clomping she hears can’t be curious infected come to munch—it’s horse hooves.

You turn to face the new arrival, reloading in the time it takes him to nose around the corner and bump his rider in the shoulder.

A gnarled scream resounds from the other end of the hallway, and you turn, ready to receive the impact of a runner with your pocketknife in its eye before it can gnash at you where you’re pinned, surprised to find fully lucid eyes. You wrestle, heedless of the man who could easily down you both. You finally get behind your assailant’s legs enough to stomp on the backs of his knees, taking him down as you feel for the pop of his larynx as you constrict around his neck. He’s big, despite your well-applied motions, and you startle when the man goes limp along with a gunshot.

You register the hot spray of blood close to your face, another, stealthier attacker taken down in one. You’d thought the man had shot who you were struggling with, but as you realize you’d successfully killed him, you notice a flash near the blond man: raise, aim, fire. The fourth and final infected drops with a weapon leveled at the scruffy man in the good jacket. Looking back up as you return your pistol to level with the man, you shove the attacker off of you but stay seated, legs sprawled on the floor. You’re tattered throughout, hair, clothes, demeanor, certain you look like some zone urchin.

“Where’d you come from?” he asks hurriedly, pistol in his opposite hand already being holstered back to his thigh, eyebrow raised at the other one he’d taken out.

“Just around,” you start.

“C’mon, what were you doin’ out here with them?” he asks.

“Listen, I’m not a zoner or with anyone. You can let me leave and I won’t trade here again,” you offer, not interested in giving details. The man above you is formidable, but he’d have shot minutes ago if he wasn’t reasonable.

“Ain’t never been a zone in Wyoming, so that makes sense. Last time I’m askin’,” he clarifies.

“I live alone,” you admit, hoping it’ll de-escalate the situation.

He scoffs, gesturing at the evidence of waning fall around you both, the recently-turned runner stacked up in four layers, the warehouse piled thick with leaves near the entrance.

“Right,” he lowers his gun, a hand up. “Go, on, then,” he gestures to yours.

You lower it as slowly as someone planning to bring it back up might.

“Please, I’m not gonna hurt you. I believe you,” he sighs, rubbing a hand through a well-kept beard. _Between that and the unripped jacket, must not be alone out here._

“Then let me go,” you spit.

“Listen, we have a settlement. Prove you’re honest and you can stay,” he offers.

It’s your turn to scoff.

“I’m not fucking coming with you. It’s been real. Going to take what I came for and go home, alone,” you emphasize.

“We could use a hand like yours,” he observes.

“Everyone can shoot straight twenty years after—” you hesitate, “—what’s your name?”

He smiles, not about to offer that when you’d set such clear lines around your own exposure.

“Listen, if you do live up here, you’ll find where we are. Come if you want, just approach the gate careful,” he adds.

—

Molly shrugs, grimacing down at the lit town. It should drop her jaw to see civilization ringed by operatic Snake River mountains, but she’s so tired it barely registers as more than a threat. She hadn’t found food in four days and her attempts at rabbit jerky had run very thin. He could have killed her, and he didn’t. _And_ that was her last lead on trading.

_Stock up, head out._

When Molly reaches the trailhead just before the floodlit gates after her boots have a few close calls with loose gravel. Shrugging her weapons out of the way and raising her hands, she starts a steady, anxious approach.

“Stop!” Comes from above her, the sweeping light of rifles immediately illuminating her and making her squint.

“I’m alone,” Molly calls.

“Where from?” The voice calls back.

“Nowhere close. Been wandering,” Molly doesn’t want to confess why.

“You gotta be checked,” the voice returns, and a small grate opens in the larger gate. “C’mon through.”

Molly gets through and finds hands ripping away her weapons, almost too tired to protest.

“Gotta see if you’re bit,” one person explains. “Over here, please.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Molly pronounces simply.

“Tommy, straggler out here,” one mutters into his walkie-talkie.

“On my way,” the voice crackles back.

Molly eyes the group from hooded eyes, guns trained on her without intention.

“Oh, well. Hi,” Tommy starts, remembering you from two days ago.

“You know her?”

“Nope. But it looks like you found us,” he replies to Molly. “Look, we can’t have anyone turning inside.”

“Works out because I’m not bit,” Molly retorts, arms over her chest.

“Anne,” Tommy tips his head towards a female guard.

“It never gets less weird for me, I can promise that. C’mon,” Anne holds her hand out to a small booth behind her.

“Fuck’s sake.”

“We’ll get some food in you after,” Tommy says. The street behind him is quiet, but she sees people shuffling from location to location, distant greetings being exchanged, too low for her to hear.

Anne is kind and averts her eyes while Molly undresses, cranking a space heater to make it less punishing of an intrusion.

“There. Not bit,” Molly gestures over her bare torso. “Or do you need my tits out, too?” She mutters to herself, not wanting to spew hostility when she’s still so hungry and woozy on her feet.

“All clear. Sorry about this. Just, there’s kids, y’know?” Anne supplies.

Molly eyes her suspiciously. That’s the only reason to prevent a runner spawning in your home? How long has this place been going?

Shouldering out into the cold once she’s redressed, Tommy hands her gun back with an apologetic smile.

“I was just about to pack it in for the night. Want dinner?”

Molly’s eyes widen at him, a little terrified of what exposing her body to real food might be like, if she’d shrivel trying to digest something real with her disused organs. She’s too singular, circles carved dark above her cheekbones, to even notice the cheerful lights strung across the street they turn down. There’s a toddler in someone’s front yard haplessly un-piling a pile of leaves, guarded by a parent on the porch who waves at Tommy as he passes, but Molly just blinks at the baffling scene.

“So, I get a name yet?” Tommy asks, leading her down a neat row of houses towards a place with a wraparound porch.

“Molly,” she replies, tucking chin-length, dirty auburn hair behind her ear. She has the feeling of being underdressed for the first time in twenty years, cognizant of her raw expression and practical layers.

“Tommy Miller,” he introduces himself with a warm smile.

Molly nods, a little aghast.

“It can be a lot to take in,” he offers, leading you up onto a porch and holding the door open. “Maria, have a guest,” he calls over the din from the kitchen.

A pretty greying blonde pops her head around a doorframe.

“I barely cooked but c’mon, not getting warmer,” she calls before making another loud clank and reappearing in full.

“Take over?” She gestures as Tommy does, turning her head as he kisses her cheek in passing.

“Molly,” she introduces, unsure what the hell to do with herself in a house with sealed windows and a fire casting warm light around nicely kept furniture.

“Shouldn’t be long, take a seat and warm up,” Maria offers, waving her towards the couch.

Molly pauses, looking up cautiously.

“Kind of you, but can I ask why?”

Maria appraises her.

“You’re alone in the woods. You haven’t hurt anybody. And, you clearly know how,” Maria explains as she ascends.

Molly lingers awkwardly in the hallway.

“Tommy mentioned he’d run into you, so we were somewhat ready,” Maria says, voice carrying a similar note of kindness to her husband’s as she hands Molly water.

“Listen, you need your strength, but there’s a hotel some of the town renovated and you can have a place there tonight. No strings,” Maria reassures.

Molly squints without trying to.

“But listen, you want to stay, patrol, whatever, there’s a place. Just let me know. Take your time,” Maria says, and Molly gets the impression it’s been extended to many in the same way.

—

Molly wakes up in the twin bed of the predominantly green hotel room, recently wallpapered, and spends three dreary minutes reacting like she’s died. Because of course she has, there’s no unpeeled wallpaper left in the world. 

Catching the clean, warm scent of her own hair jolts her. 

The shower she’d found waiting in this room after trying to remember how to make polite conversation with the Millers had stunned her. The hot running water and clean towel would have done it, but there was a nice soap that smelled of the tall wildflowers she’d come to affiliate with walking alongside the Snake River that made her rest her head against (neatly, recently grouted) tile for long minutes just to untangle the knots in her shoulders. 

Molly had fallen asleep naked minutes after; fed, clean, and finally moving slowly enough to feel every aching corner of her joints compressing her.

Dressing while she looks down over the town this morning, she vaguely thinks if dinner—normal, cooked indoors, eaten at a table—is possible, maybe there’s breakfast somewhere. Unsure what patrolling entails, she laces her boots and trots downstairs to wander about, securing only her pistol first. 

_Maybe it's a cult._

_Maybe not, though._


	2. Sweet Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it hospitality in action, or Maria trying to give them both a heart attack?

Joel starts at the sound, taking a second to hear that it’s coming from the door. A normal noise, human in origin. He can’t imagine Ellie would be coming to talk, and its too late for most of the town to be out.

Peering through the window over his shoulder, he sees a woman shifting with a huge jar of something on her hip. He clears his throat, scrubs his hair back, settling for however it fell. He’d taken to wearing honest-to-God pajama pants for the first time since the outbreak since Dina and Ellie had gifted him a pair they looted. Glancing at the clock above his reading glasses, it looked like ten, and he had been hoping to get to bed early.

“Evenin’,” he greets.

“Howdy, neighbor. Brought some sweet tea over to introduce myself, I think,” the woman gestures to the large jar. Joel can see carefully ribboned fruits floating in the tea. “I’m, uh,” she points to a green house across the street, “…and Maria asked me to drop this off on my way home,” she admits sheepishly. 

“Ain’t the hospitality supposed to be on me? C’mon in, I’ve got bourbon for it,” Joel surprises himself as he says it. He would roll his eyes at his brother’s wife’s unsubtle maneuver, but she’d only done it once _so far_ and he was grateful to be answering a door, in a house, in a town, without a gun strapped to him. His night was supposed to end with him asleep on the couch in about twenty minutes, sci-fi novel he’d nicked from Ellie’s bookshelf across his chest, but the auburn bob striding into his living room scuttled all that.

Joel gestures at the threadbare but whole furniture in the living room—an outright luxury—and she places her jar down on the coffee table. Molly didn’t miss his broad frame around town _once_ when it had been present, but she thinks:

_Oh, shit._

Tommy was perfectly handsome, if not her type, but she was still curious what the brother she’d seen from afar was like. She regretted instantly knowing he was _exactly_ her type, dark hair and warm hazel eyes above high cheekbones, broad shoulders that felt downright suggestive at this distance. She tried not to notice how well-defined his forearms were, nor his wingspan, and determinedly did not watch him climb the stairs.

“I’ll uh,” Joel gestures down at himself, “be right back.” He’s nimble and quiet as he gets upstairs and finds his jeans in the dark, stepping into his boots in stride, leaving his laces for downstairs.

Molly listens above her for the soft shifting of the planks in Joel’s bedroom, impressed by the upkeep this place has seen. Walls were patched and repainted, moulding repaired, baseboards seemingly hand-carved. Must’ve been in Jackson awhile; must’ve been reasonably handy before.

“Alright, bourbon,” Joel re-enters the room, sliding open a drawer and unscrewing the unmarked bottle he finds within.

“Where’d you manage all that?” Molly asks with eyebrows high.

“We may or may not have a little operation. Think this latest batch turned out something close real bourbon,” he commented.

“You’re Ellie’s old man?” she asks conversationally, getting two-handed leverage on the jar to twist it open for him.

“Yes ma’am,” he replies, placing the bourbon down and retreating to the kitchen. He returns swiftly with two tall glasses, incredibly, filled to the brim with real ice. She watches him pour two healthy draws of bourbon into each glass.

“Seems like a solid kid,” Molly compliments. She wasn’t directly fearful of the knife twirling Ellie had taken to displaying in public, but it may not hurt to avoid the wrong end.

“Sorry, you came in with those survivors Tommy hauled back last week? And, sorry about Maria,” he adds, glancing at the sweet tea and smiling. It crinkles the edges of his eyes and emphasizes every one of his features. He looks a little abashed, and Molly wants him to pour faster so she can do something with her hands.

“I…nobody else was with me,” she introduces. “And grateful as hell. Maria’s had me deciding if I want to help patrol train some of the kids and offered me that place for awhile,” she nods in the direction of her house.

“You a veteran then?” Joel asks, exchange coming easier than he thought it would. He rarely drives conversations, but his ingrained Texan politeness had kicked in to be hospitable. He tips the big jar into each of their glasses, sloshing tea over the bourbon.

She snorts, and he notices that the bridge of her nose is adorable when she laughs. Molly is probably around her early forties, compact and fit, a few inches shorter than Joel with an auburn wavy bob and very pale green eyes. Scars, old and fresh, peek out beneath her clothes; the same near misses everyone has now. He thinks she seems comfortable with herself, watching her form shift, feeling them both angle towards each other with ease.

_Hmm._ Joel can abundantly understand why Maria decided to make this particular woman bring him tea, and he feels like he can’t keep his eyes to himself. He might yell at his sister-in-law, soon.

“Aren’t we all by now?” She evades, which he nods respectfully at, tilting his glass. For once, drinking with someone who wasn’t asking. He courteously returns the favor.

Rising and offering a glass to Molly, he gestures to the back door. “Drink outside while we still can?”

“What, there another virus coming?” she asks.

Joel huffs a laugh: “Just October in Jackson. Can’t be weather for sweet tea much longer. Mind takin’ this out?” he hands her his glass.

Molly makes her way down from the back porch towards a circle of carved wooden chairs. She settles with a thigh draped over one armrest, his drink on her knee, her own curled against her chest.

“You happen to be that prized carpenter I hear people praising all over?” She cracks a smile as Joel joins her with an armful of wood. It blooms from one corner of her mouth to the other and he’s reminded of a cat adjusting in the middle of a sunny nap.

He smiles and breaks their eye contact. “Dunno ‘bout prized, but I’m at Jackson’s service.”

Joel drops the wood into the fire pit, closing a welded rebar grate over it. He pulls a match from where he’d tucked it above his ear while carrying the wood and strikes it on his belt. Molly laughs, the ruggedness of it suitably charming, and he takes his tea back from her as the match begins to catch.

“Welcome to Jackson, neighbor,” Joel toasts, clinking their glasses.

“Thank you most kindly,” she replies, taking a deep sip. Her eyes widen. “Fuck, that’s actually drinkable!”

Joel smiles a little more broadly. “Yeah, we’re gettin’ closer every time. Damn good tea.”

“Found a little lemon tree withering behind the patrol shed. Last three fruits of the summer in this tea, I suppose. I’ll nurse it back in no time,” she explains.

Joel looks directly at her, a nice opportunity to take in his defined cheekbones and the straight lines of his nose. There’s barely grey in his black beard, but it suits him.

“You’ve made a real home here,” Molly breaks the silence.

“Feels more like it every day. Most folk walk around armed but I’d attribute that less to the people and more to the twenty years of infected and bandits they’ve seen.”

“You don’t,” Molly notes, pointing to the empty holster on his belt.

“Well, I was about to fall asleep on my own couch with open windows before you knocked. Infected haven’t gotten into Jackson in more than ten years from what I’ve heard. Guess I’m slipping in my old age.”

Molly tried to guess however old Joel had been plus twenty years of survival. She’d put him around fifty. He’s explicitly handsome, something no amount of weathering and stress could conceal, in the type of shape to clear zombie herds out a few times a week. He’s got a thoughtful gaze to him, and Molly notices him taking in the freckles across the bridge of her nose.

“Where were you before here?”

Molly leans back and crosses her ankles. He notes long, toned legs shifting under the canvas of her jeans and tries not to all at once.

“Settlement in Colorado for a bit, place in Nevada before that. I lived in Boston before the outbreak; spent about five years learning that the Eastern seaboard is a wasteland before giving up. You?”

“Oh, all around. Tommy and I are from Texas, originally.”

“I surmised,” Molly smiles, imitating his drawl with a quirk of her mouth. “Ellie doesn’t sound Texan,” she comments.

“She’s from Boston,” he explains.

Molly nods.

“Me too, kinda,” she admits.

“When?” Joel sips his tea, placing an empty glass on the low table.

“College, actually. Was in Back Bay on outbreak day,” Molly explains. “Left to find a warmer QZ, I guess,” she goes quiet.

Joel’s shoulders tense like he’s remembering the Boston winters without fondness. No sense in explaining she’d genuinely thought shuffling alone throughout the wide American West was an excellent alternative to the gnashing misery of quarantine zones after Nevada went the way of slaver-laden California. Part of her almost hoped for a quick, natural death once she’d crawled back over the Sierras—plenty of wilderness to go around.

“Jackson recent for you?” Molly toes her boots up near the base of the fire as the night cools further.

“Been about two years for Ellie and me. Tommy about ten. Maria and her dad founded it a few years after the outbreak,” Joel says.

They hear a loud crash from the standalone garage to the left of the fire pit and Joel turns to regard it without alarm.

“Sixteen,” Joel says in explanation and shrugs.

“She lives in your garage?” Molly says with amusement over judgment.

“She badgered me to bring it ‘up to code’ so she’d have her own space,” Joel leans back and crosses his legs at the ankles, resting his tea in his lap.

“She’s also very bad at ‘sneaking’ in but I’ll guarantee the kitchen’s been picked over since we’ve been out here if she’s been out doing what I think,” he says.

“Cool dad,” Molly toasts teasingly.

Joel gives a light little nod and glances down.

They drink in comfortable silence as the fire burns down, Ellie’s lights extinguishing within minutes.

Molly turns her head, conscious of joining an early patrol and the jarring hour at which she’d been directed to bother this man.

“I should head back, get some rest before patrol,” Molly stands with her glass.

Joel nods and rises to walk her out.

“Which route’d they throw you on?”

“Creek trails,” Molly shrugs, unsure of what it held.

“Nice way to see the leaves while you get used to the paths,” Joel comments, taking her glass as they patch the kitchen. A single pickle jar sits at the center, all brine, herbs, and one spare pickle remaining with the lid across the kitchen island. They share a quick glance and Joel re-seals and shelves the jar as they move through the kitchen to the door.

“Thank you for the bourbon, stranger,” Molly smiles up at him when she steps onto the porch taking in his features again.

“Thank you for the tea, neighbor,” Joel counters, hand on the doorframe. He makes himself close it quickly when she reaches the street, turning with both hands on his head before exhaling audibly.


	3. Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly has an absolutely vicious crush that's taking precedence over absorbing that she's safe in Jackson.

Leagues ahead of adapting to a life with a routine again, Molly has instead developed a crush that makes her feel guilty. Joel’s polite, a little quiet, seems eager to get outside of Jackson on most days. Maria had welcomed Molly openly, and she’d spent her first week helping her out where she could. Patrols were going out more often with the antsy herds causing far more scuffles than she’d like.

She tries to read before she falls asleep instead of mulling him over and still ends up dreaming about him, sweaty and nondescript but abundantly clear in identity. Her dream is lurid and she wakes up flinging her blankets off, drenched in ways that make her blush. Molly’s been in Jackson for nineteen days, and it feels like this takes up more of her time than anything else, even if it wasn’t true. She’d gotten laid recently enough—though it wasn’t often worth the risk. It was fine, and she was fine. She’s just stressed and in a new place. _And_ dreaming about Joel’s hand on her throat and gorgeous forearms tight across her belly with his mouth at her ear while he fucks her. Around four AM Molly rises and goes to the window, knowing she’s not going to sleep much.

The rest of her week gets worse. Every other night, she’d have some new vision of exactly how she apparently wanted him to manhandle her. It was getting exasperating. She wasn’t really submissive by default, not at all, and she didn’t get the impression that this particular person sought out a lot more intensity in his life between shivving clickers and wrangling the perpetual herd funneling into the pass.

Didn’t stop her from thinking about how nimbly he wove through conversation when she’d crashed his evening with a big jar of tea. She tosses her covers back over her face after getting in bed at ten tonight and makes herself come quickly, thinking of how he pinned her in this latest vision, hoping it’ll banish the distraction so she can sleep.

Forty-five minutes later, it doesn’t. Molly tries walking to the Tipsy Bison for a beer, hoping someone neutral will be there for company. She tugs on her boots and knots a flannel around her waist in case it’s cooled down much.

Unfortunately, Molly gets about a hundred feet from home and notices Joel is back from patrol, having a beer in the stables with Tommy. There’s no other route to alcohol that doesn’t involve skulking through people’s backyards, so she sighs and shoves her hands into her pockets. He’s leaning back on the high walls of the stable, down to a t-shirt despite the cool night air. She notices him smoothing over his horse’s mane a few times, gently, and she feels a hot spike of embarrassment when she sees his hands and her nocturnal neurons spark together with white-hot connection.

Last night, as far as her sleeping self was concerned, those hands stroked her with a perfect disregard for being gentle. He’d found a way to wind them through her hair and tug just right, slipped fingers into her mercilessly alongside his cock, and she tries to boot the thought from her mind as Tommy notices her and waves kindly. Molly pushes each side of her bob behind her ears, drawing a deep breath.

Joel looks over his shoulder—his broad, _stupid, attractive fucking shoulders_ -—and Molly waves dumbly. Tommy’s perpetually on his village mascot beat and raises a beer from their apparently shared little bucket along with his eyebrows, beckoning her.

Molly smiles and grants herself one muttered “fuck me” when Joel’s turned to take another sip of his beer.

“Was just headin’ to the Bison,” she remarks, accepting the actually-cold beer as he cracks it.

“Just talkin’ about our lovely new migratory neighbors,” Tommy fills her in. “You any good with a rifle?” He queries hopefully, more anxious about the herds than he says.

“Tommy, you’re not even any good with a rifle,” Joel chuckles into his beer. Molly notices the pistol holster strapped around his thigh and takes a hard draw of her beer. It’s practical and at the same time, she’s provoked by the sheer audacity of the holster emphasizing how neatly he could pin her with those thighs.

Tommy makes a mental note to absolutely roast his brother for a truly classic move. Pretty girl? Joke at dumb brother’s expense. Bullseye. Later, Joel will complain to him that he: _“…couldn’tbelieve this one moment of downtime, first bit of my day without a herd’s wails echoing all around the valley, you make it high stakes!” (_ All it does it confirm that Tommy and Maria were right about them.)

“Actually, your kid asked _me_ for lessons,” Tommy retorts mock-defensively.

“Not how I heard it, but I’m glad the North herd is handled,” Joel smiles, raising his beer to his brother.

“Well?” Tommy looks back at Molly.

“I’m of the pistol persuasion. Guess I haven’t been far enough away from infected for sniping very often,” Molly points out, shrugging.

“Yeah, and the clicker you took down did have about six bullets in it,” Tommy criticizes her but it’s not unkind. 

“Jesus,” Joel remarks.

“I was a little panicked,” she defends. They’re both easy to be around, and Molly hops up on a table with bridles strewn across it, watching the slow rising glow of torches, lanterns, and genuine electric light around Jackson as the sun recedes.

“Should’ve seen my early work,” Tommy supplies kindly, if untruthfully. “Joel, you’re not comin’ tomorrow, right?” he asks.

“Wasn’t,” Joel replies carefully, question in his tone.

“Why don’t you take Molly over to the range and take a few more out? We could use another person with decent sight, honestly,” Tommy asks in his Jackson-leader-voice.

Joel looks stormy for a second, and Tommy knows he’s going to kill him later. Molly says nothing and looks between them. Twenty years of misery and estrangement between them, and Tommy’s just going to slip back into aggressive wingman mode like it’s squarely normal.

“I can do my best,” Joel agrees, and Molly tries to smile without a blush. Tries not to think about how her imagination supplied all the hotly said endearments she’d imagined him breathing out when she was trying desperately to sleep for the last week.

“How do you manage a shooting range in the town? Wouldn’t it just create a vortex of infected?” Molly asks.

“Well, ‘range’ might be Tommy putting civilization on it. There’s a ridge on patrol route two we’ve been seeing the herds funnel through,” Joel explains. “I take the training patrols out there to practice.”

“It’s where I let Ellie try out the scope. She’s terrifying,” Tommy reflects honestly. Joel can’t help looking a little proud of her.

“She took ten minutes to take her first shot, but she got two infected down in the first ten seconds. Three shots!” Tommy beams.

“High bar,” Molly concedes.

\------

“Okay. Show me your stance,” Joel starts when they’ve reached the ridge after conversation that halts with the usual discomfort of getting to know someone.

“You fucking kidding?” Molly asks, disarmed. She didn’t just trip into Jackson over her own feet. 

“Yes,” he admits, cracking a smile and walking towards her while he reloads the rifle.

“Good,” she tries not to look at him for too long. _How long are you supposed to look at someone you’re talking to? Is there a limit? Am I making it weird?_ He seems a little uneasy as she looks down, checking the bolt for herself, a generally good habit. _Fuck, I’m making it weird._

Molly takes up the rifle, settling the butt into her shoulder and acquainting herself with the scope.

“Woah, nice,” she mumbles, swearing she can see the sun glint off a clicker’s fungal plate.

“Actually,” Joel starts and stops, putting his hands on her elbows. Molly takes her face away from the scope and lowers it when she hears the suspicious sound of a chuckle covered by a cleared throat.

“What?” She asks flatly. She’d shot a goddamn rifle before.

“Uh,” Joel clears his throat again, “Your elbows, like that, for a reason?”

“Like?” Molly narrows her eyes.

Joel sticks his elbows out to the side, exaggerated but not incorrect in form.

“Like a…prayin’ mantis?” he tries. Molly takes the rifle back up, trying to figure out what he means, brows drawing together.

“Okay, where?”

Joel taps her elbows lightly from behind. They are absolutely parallel to the ground, now that he points it out, and her face heats.

“Jesus,” she mutters.

“You’re just tensed up. If it’s the kick, you can’t be rigid when it hits,” he guesses. He thinks back to handing Ellie a shotgun in Pittsburgh and hoping. When she’d descended from her makeshift sniping nest, she had a black eye and a red welt on her jaw.

“No, you have to lean into it. Be ready for it,” she counters. “Show me, then.” Molly taps his gun.

“I mean,” he shrugs and stands tall, rifle comfortably seated and posture relaxed. He looks like he’s angled very intentionally, but there’s no tension in his neck as he uses the scope and squeezes the trigger without more than a couple of seconds of preparation. Molly tries to _just_ study his posture, missing the mark in a few exceptionally fit places.

Molly raises her scope again and peers through it—one dead clicker spasms its last hacking breath before stilling.

“Nice shot,” Molly says, accepting the shell Joel holds out for her and quickly loading her own rifle.

“Better?” she asks when she gets into position. She knows it is.

“If it feels right to you,” Joel backpedals. He’s nervous, more nervous that it shows, and Tommy was absolutely going to get yelled at.

Molly looks over her shoulder with a wry smile, but her eyes are warm. She turns and fires, missing and inhaling at the recoil. They hear a loud ping below as the shell hits the radio pole. A chorus of agitated infected noises rise from the valley, swarming to the pole like a storm to a lightning rod.

They share the universal look for “yikes,” not close enough for concern but still unsettled by the sound. Joel hands her a shell again, dumping a few into her open jacket pocket while she reloads.

“Shit, they’re loud,” she complains idly, aiming and firing, but still backing up from the recoil. One drops, others around it jerking in response.

She hears a contained chuckle get forced into a cough, and Joel pushes his hair back with one hand before getting back to his scope.

“What is it?” she asks.

Caught, Joel responds: “You might just be too slim to not get knocked back at least a little, that’s all.”

“Not like I can stabilize my wrist like it’s a pistol,” she points out.

“So use your whole body?” he replies dumbly. _What else are you supposed to do?_

Molly turns her head to him sharply, gesturing at him.

“Yeah, my whole—that?” she grumbles, gesturing at Joel before defensively curling around the rifle and spraying a mist of red directly out of the cleft of a clicker, boots scuffling slightly back.

Joel leans up against the tree he’s backed near, hands on his hips, watching her in amusement.

Molly’s back jerks lightly with the weapon’s report, but it’s contained. If she rolls her shoulder out on the ride back, he pretends not to notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wild to assert that Molly would struggle with kickback when Ellie is only a 5'2" smol and clearly doesn't? Maybe! Roll with it, for me. She's a close-quarters champ, that's all.


	4. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly and Joel solve a Halloween problem in Jackson

Molly blinks awake late and can tell it’s nearly 4:30 in the afternoon by the fissure of orange bisecting her wall. By the time she’d collapsed back in her bed that night, hair wet from rinsing the grime of patrol off, the analog alarm clock on her end table read well past three in the morning. She’d had the type of rest you get not from normal rhythmic fatigue, but true muscle exhaustion and one hell of an adrenalin crash. 

Swinging her legs off the side of the bed, she’s due to help package up some candies for the kids young enough to trick or treat. Well aware Maria enlisted her to help ensure the ones who are just a little old for  _ that _ don’t secret away a barrel of liquor or two, Molly sighs and decides to shower again before heading out. 

Rising for the bathroom, she relishes the flicking-on of lights and running of the shower, a routine of conveniences she’s still not accustomed enough to take for granted. Tossing off her sleep shirt, she takes herself in while faint steam accumulates sufficiently to keep it warm. 

Molly had been beyond lean before Jackson, but with predictable meals and her rigorous schedule, she’s filling into a toned physique and looking overall less gaunt. Her mouth and cheeks have filled back in, restoring the pretty cut of her features, emphasized by a freshly-shorn bob cutting at her jawline. The auburn strands appear less murky, red undertones pulling through more. 

Molly spends her shower considering the caramels she’d managed to pull together in the industrial kitchen earlier in the week, Eugene practically thumbing his nose as to why he knew the way to make purposefully infused candies the whole time. She’d finally relented that he should make his own special batch and CLEARLY MARK it, but she still commits to ensuring he’s sectioned off his edibles on the way over. 

* * *

Leaves crunch below Molly’s feet as she walks towards the center of town, a sensation she hadn’t had the pace to appreciate in far too long. She kicks them a little joyfully, the few people milling past the stables at this hour unlikely to comment. It’s that authentic, here-comes-November kind of chill that makes her crave something warm to drink. 

The head and shoulders of a large, stout horse emerge from the stable doors in her periphery, followed quickly by Joel easing him into a trot. They lock eyes as she completes the leaf-kick she’d started as he’d come into view: a pile of red leaves puffing into the air before settling.

“Those guys botherin’ you?” Joel asks, immediately cringing at his own idiotic choice of opener but swallowing it. 

_ Christ,  _ he thinks.

Molly curls her mouth at him, abashed. 

_ This one sure seems about to,  _ she thinks.

“Don’t love Halloween, hm?” Molly diverts.

Joel inclines his head, not upset by her questioning but not elaborating. As he guides his horse closer, they fall into an easy cadence. 

“I’m sorry,” she comments, heavy with understanding well beyond mere remorse that he isn’t reveling with everyone else. 

Joel considers her blankly for a moment before offering a small smile. 

“If you’re headed past, I can sneak you something before you ride out,” Molly says.

“You make sure Eugene didn’t do anything interesting to ‘em?”

“Always will have to, apparently. This a yearly problem?”

“Yep, and he’s dealing with any stoned kids he causes,” Joel grouses, light-of-tone. The crunching flurry of leaves (and the woman kicking them about if he's honest) had pulled him from a terrible spiral of Halloweens with Sarah over the years. He’d been stuck between a little crab costume as an infant to a Jedi Knight in her eleventh year. Joel remembers helping pin back the hood on her cloak so it wouldn’t cover her eyes. His posture loosens as Molly’s presence thaws him. 

“Which route tonight?” she asks.

“Not a route, just a loop of the valley. Close, just reinforcing the rest of the squads,” Joel readjusts his reins.

Molly tilts her head curiously. It’s unlike him to falter in demonstrating the safety protocols he’d diligently helped to improve. Nobody goes out unpaired. 

“I’m takin’ one of the long-range radios if anything happens,” Joel clarifies. 

He clears his throat. Molly raises an eyebrow.

“I know, I know,” he relents.

“I’m fuckin’ tellin’ if you’re not back by midnight,” Molly smiles up at him. A rust-colored flannel pokes out from under his jacket, the color of her preferred leaves, and a dim little thought that he looks so good she may as well just punch herself in the face drifts by. 

“I believe you will,” Joel acknowledges. He can’t articulate that it feels good for someone to know where he’d be, even if he’d taken careful pains to avoid alerting Ellie or his brother. 

“Here, c’mere,” Molly takes the horse’s bridle carefully, guiding them just outside the kitchen. Joel shifts in his saddle, his horse instantly choosing to obey her guidance over his reins.

“Molly!” Eugene’s voice booms from inside, always full of delight at seeing the woman. 

“Eug, two extremely normal caramels, please,” Molly demands. 

“Girlie—” he starts.

“They are not for me. Please,” she emphasizes. 

Eugene selects two he’s wrapped best and hands them over. 

“Thank you, dear,” she teases, ducking back outside.

“Contraband-free,” Molly assures, reaching up to tuck them into Joel’s jacket pocket. He inclines his head gratefully at her and a soft look crosses him for a second at the familiarity in the gesture. 

_ Maybe she’s just handsy with everyone _ , he considers.

Eugene pokes his head out of the kitchen curiously, mouth going wide and popping shut when he sees her hand withdraw from his pocket. Their gazes are angled entirely on each other, Molly straining to her tallest towards him, Joel tilted just her way from his saddle. They look to interlock with one another seamlessly, no words passing before Joel turns his horse and completes his temporary escape from Jackson. 

“You fix flowers on all the knights as they ride out to war, girlie?” Eugene blocks the doorframe of the kitchen when Molly turns around. 

“Eugene, I will make it look like an accident,” Molly replies, holding up a finger at him. 

“You’re mean as a snappin’ turtle, ain’t got no accidents in you,” Eugene protests kindly, slapping Molly on the shoulder. 

“I told you,” he adds.

“Told me what, Gene?” 

“Oh, earlier I’m Eug, now I’m Gene, which one is for when I’m in trouble?”

Molly levels him with a look that lets him know both apply. 

“You might get your whole name if you kept your candies to one side when you were wrapping these, kid,” Molly says. 

“Completely separated,” he points to a jar, which is unsealed, and blinks.

“Fuck,” they say in unison. 

“Who’s been around, Eugene?” Molly starts.

“Been around what?” Maria’s commanding voice comes from the doorframe. She’s wearing cat ears, and Molly makes a note to laugh her ass off when the situation better called for it. It’s kind of adorable to learn their leader is possibly as excited as the children tonight.

Molly and Eugene glance at each other guiltily.

“Seems someone snagged a handful of the special ones,” Eugene admits. 

“While you were busy gawking at Molly and Joel, I assume?” Maria rebukes him harshly. 

“Well sure sounds like I ain’t the only one gawkin’,” Eugene objects, putting his hands on his hips. Eugene had a protective streak a mile wide, and Molly often found herself appreciating when he’d puff up like a big bird on her behalf. 

Molly feels her face age five years as she gives Maria a withering look. She churns through ways to beg for Maria’s silence. 

_ Please, it wasn’t that obvious.  _

_ Please, god, mention it to anyone in Jackson except his brother.  _

_ Please—how many people would see that and think anything of it? _

_ Wait, I take it back, you can say it to Tommy if you  _ don’t tell Joel. 

“Well, come on. Someone has to stay by the stables: I don’t much like them doing it in Jackson, but I would prefer it to going outside tonight,” Maria grumbles. 

Eugene and Molly shuffle behind Maria like scolded children after locking the kitchen. 

“Joel’s a good man, girlie,” Eugene near-whispers.

“Gene, I love you, but I will cut out your tongue, I swear to god,” Molly hisses back. 

“That ain’t the denial you think it is,” he winks at her. 

Tommy collides with his wife’s side so quickly and forcefully one would be forgiven for thinking he was trying to tackle her. The truth is closer to him getting rambunctious when the slightest hint of normal, old-world-resembling fun was about—he loves holidays like a kid. There’s no costume on him, but he flicks one of the ears on his wife’s headband affectionately. 

Molly spins to Eugene while Tommy is occupied attempting to kiss Maria over her protestations, holding one finger up to him again. 

“One word,” Molly warns. 

“No words, no words,” Eugene repeats back, hands raised. 

“Eugene and Molly were just offering to guard the stables all night; some of the kids got some of Gene’s candies,” Maria explains. Tommy kisses the top of her head reassuringly, just between her cat ears. 

“They’re just gonna have a fun night, be a little bit dizzy for a few hours,” he says. 

“Yeah, well, they better do it in  _ here _ ,” Maria pronounces. 

“Wouldn’t be so bad if some of the adults could get into it, hmm?” Tommy tosses a look over his shoulder at Eugene. 

“Later, later,” Eugene assures him with a smile. Molly shoulders past them into the stables, immediately counting fewer horses than she should. 

She rounds the first stall and shakes her head.

“Oh, motherfuck. Come on,” Molly hisses when she finds two of the stables haphazardly open in addition to Joel’s. 

The other three trail her as she storms over to her usual horse, Stella, and offers the pretty dappled mare a quick scritch on the nose before rapidly tacking her. 

Tommy sidles over and helps ease Stella’s bridle on as Molly buckles her saddle. 

“Can’t say you have bad instincts, Maria,” Molly offers.

“If only my instructions were ever heeded,” Maria crosses her arms. Her mind is already on the teenagers that made it as far as the hotel last year, the bodies Joel and Ellie brought back but she’d decided their parents didn’t deserve to see, not like that. She blinks away the memory of one sunbleached skeleton laid next to the fungal remnants of a skinny clicker. 

“Where the hells’ Joel?” Tommy emerges from his own count of the horses. The other three just look at him, pokerfaces absent. 

Molly sighs.

“He’s got the long range on him, if you’re worried,” she says from atop her mount, nudging Stella forward. As she goes, Eugene looks smug, Maria looks unfazed, and Tommy squints at her like he’s doing math. 

* * *

Stella rides well for Molly, quick and attentive to her instructions. It’s easy to discern where Joel’s horse split up the hatchbacks that lead to the loop, so the fresher prints extending before her seem to lead towards one of the lookouts. Just as she’s set to cross the river to the main path, Molly hears cantering hooves behind her and knows who she’ll find before she turns. 

“If you’re out here for me, it ain’t midnight yet,” Joel calls as he catches up to her slowing horse.

“Kids grabbed a couple of horses, definitely a few extra special caramels,” Molly shrugs, a little breathless from the ride so far. Joel looks in a similar state, hair a little wild and his jacket off and secured to the back of his saddle. 

Joel laughs and looks down at the reins in his hands. Molly gives him an incredulous look, sweat beading around her hairline. 

“What, at least they’re doin’ what kids should be,” he supplies. 

“I have a feeling when we were doing this kind of thing, there weren’t ambulatory mushrooms,” Molly grouses. 

Joel mouths her last words, turning them over. 

_ She goes about saying shit in the hardest way possible.  _

The lights of the lookout are on, and they pass a look between them before heading up the hatchback.

Getting inside the gate, they both moodily lead their horses into the full-open garage next to the two missing horses.

Joel looks…stormy. Ellie’s just a bit too old to have done something this dumb, but he’s bracing for her to be inside anyway. He trots up the steps to the main house lighter than his frame should allow. Molly follows after the garage door is down. 

They wind through the house until the source of light—the big picture windows facing the valley that almost say “hey, look at our exact location, please come hurt us!” spilling the light of a few lanterns out into the front yard.

Huddled by the lanterns are four remarkably stoned kids, all slouched and draped over one another and staring out at the view with mesmerized glazes on their faces. 

Joel clears his throat. 

One yelps, jumps up, and pulls a knife. 

Molly rolls her eyes and snaps it out of her hand. This one is about 15, a little too young for real patrols. Her two brothers haven’t figured out how to stand but are trying to process the imposing sight that is Joel staring them down from above. 

The fourth one, clearly the eldest, probably the instigator, definitely the coordinator, tries to bargain.

“Mr. Miller,” he starts, and Molly bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. 

“We came up for the view, just wanted to, to, uh,” he flags. Molly faintly remembers this one is called Zach, or Zachary, or something.

Joel turns off the lanterns quietly. Crouched near one, five pairs of eyes are on him as he speaks.

“Everyone, I mean everyone, raiders, cannibals,  _ especially runners _ , can see when there’s light on in here. When you leave the garage open, they can see the horses. Now, those kinds of mistakes are exactly why you need a whole lot of training and talkin’-to before you patrol,” Joel is remarkably calm and level in his speech.

“Have you eaten the caramels yet, guys?” Molly urges quietly. They’re obliterated, so she’s hopeful to avoid turning this into the most stressful drugged experience of their lives.

Zach looks down, and the youngest girl speaks up.

“We did back in Jackson,” she admits.

Joel contains a smirk.

“You’re lucky you even got the horses inside at all, aren’t you?” Molly probes.

The girl gives a frightened nod.

“Alright. We’re not mad, but you’re gonna go sleep this off and we’ll all go back in the morning. Not one of you can ride. Go. Into the bedrooms,” Molly herds them in a chorus of grumbles and motion in the cavernous main space, Joel watching with a bemused expression and his hands on his hips.

“We’ll talk in the mornin’,” Joel calls, out of some dad-reflex he didn’t know how to unlearn.

The patrol groups regularly use this place, clean it up, put fresh sheets on—its actually far from the worst place to be stranded, and Molly is even able to command them to brush their teeth before bed. Once she’s sure they’re alright, she heads back into the main room. She can see Joel skulking about the perimeter to make sure they’re safe in the distance, so she takes a seat and exhales. They could radio to Jackson when he came back in. 

* * *

Molly looks up at Joel, legs crossed and her flannel tied around her waist, bare shoulders pointed up to her ears. She sags with relief as he breaks and laughs, coming to join her with their backs against the couch. 

“I’m glad you were up here,” Molly says. 

“I wasn’t if Maria asks about it,” Joel replies. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t narc that you were sneaking out too,” she adds with a wink that stops him for a half-beat. 

“Wasn’t sneakin’, I went out the front gate!” he protests. 

“Didn’t wanna be cooped up in the walls all night, either, so,” Molly’s eyes spark and her dimples deepen with her grin. 

“Worth the view,” she continues, Jackson glittering below them with lights warmer than just dam-generated efficient bulbs, small jack-o-lanterns dotting doorsteps throughout and providing little pinpoints of orange along the whole grid.

Joel doesn’t turn his head, nodding in her direction before jerkily turning to confirm the scene. 

_ So goddamn head-turning she makes me dumb. If she notices— _ he chastises himself. 

“We should radio down to them. Maria, Tommy, Eugene, all found the empty stables with me,” Molly conveys.

“Shit,” Joel says, sighing and getting the radio off of his backpack. 

Molly unfolds her long legs and stands, Joel watching her with an unreadable expression as she strides to the open-plan kitchen. The lookout is really a lodge, one of the more ostentatious in Jackson, huge stainless hood over a center island grill, expansive valley view framing her silhouette. 

She hears the fuzz of the radio clicking on, and a shy, “hi” from her companion.

“Joel, that you?” she hears Tommy’s wavering voice crackle through.

“Yep,” he admits after a pause. 

“You seen Molly?”

“We got ‘em, we’re up at the lodge lookout. They’re fine, just stoned,” Joel reports. 

The light in the main room is low but Joel’s eyes don’t drift as Molly slams and slides cabinets, soft clicking indicating gorgeous construction, not a single angle haphazard. The carpentry part of Joel’s brain tries to appreciate that despite the much louder portion wanting to stare at Molly's hips.

“Oh, excellent,” Molly declares, alighting on a six-pack of maple beer bottles stashed in a bottom shelf tucked to the back of a cabinet. One of the more hit-or-miss attempts at homebrewing alcohol in Jackson…pretty sure this one is actually the effort of Zach’s family. 

“You know Maria’s gon’ kill you after she’s done scaring them kids?” Tommy shouts, cutting out in parts.

“Goodnight, Tommy,” Joel grumbles, clicking the radio off. 

“Catch,” Molly indicates, tossing Joel one of her pilfered prizes.

“ _ Maple _ ? I thought it was only fixed for syrup,” Joel murmurs.

“Perhaps they’re Canadian, dunno what to tell you. I’m sore from riding that hard, though, so—” Molly gestures like she’s toasting him before cracking the top loudly. 

It fizzes with an ungodly hiss, spurting onto her hand. Molly watches it for a second, then proceeds to lick most of it off as pragmatically as she can as she despises sugary hands, Joel opening his own at the absolute limit of his arm’s length and pointedly focusing on it. 

“You don’t think they’ll find this a little hypocritical if they wake up?” Joel says, sipping and cringing at once.

“If I know Eugene, they truly, truly won’t wake up. Plus, do as I say, not as I do, I suppose,” she smiles. Joel gives a healthy roll of his eyes. 

“Where does this rank in your Halloweens?” he asks conversationally, well aware it would be an impolite jab with anyone who didn’t guess why he felt the need to ring the valley instead of watching Jackson glow up from the comfort of his place. 

“Well, last one I celebrated I was a college junior, so, definitely unconscious by this point of the night,” she replies vaguely. Joel nods at her patiently.

“And I’m assumin’ there was a costume involved?” he encourages.

“I wanted to wear what I usually wore, so, of all things, let a friend do some classic zombie makeup over it,” she confesses.

Joel’s laugh is warm and provokes the corner of Molly’s eyes to crinkle. 

“My daughter was twelve in ’13. She was getting sick of it by then, or maybe just gearing up for high school mischief. The tradition had turned into pizza and horror movies more than trudgin’ around the neighborhood. And ah, couple’a years ago, Ellie wanted to carve a pumpkin, which was a lot of me beggin’ her to slow down and gettin’ bandages but, still nice,” Joel states.

Molly thinks it's the most voluminous paragraph she’d ever heard him speak all at once, and the realization is subsumed by immediate greed to hear twenty more like it. She wants to ask his daughter’s name, but can’t figure out how. 

“You think they’ll be able to ride in the morning?” Joel asks.

“Absolutely…able to sit the saddle at least,” Molly grins at him, crossing her ankles. 

“How was your ride?” she shifts her tone, angling openly towards him.

“It was nice, actually. Yours seemed a little stressful,” Joel comments, posture relaxing by degrees.

“Maria was not happy, but she’s mostly blaming Eugene for leaving his fine treats in reaching distance of anyone,” Molly explains, swallowing the commentary that  _ their _ exchange had been closely watched, and the whole scene observed just long enough for someone to sneak in and commit the perfect crime out of Eugene’s line of sight. 

“Just glad they’re okay, though I’m not delighted to miss my bed tonight,” Joel grouches. 

“Never struck me as the type,” Molly notes.

“I’m old,” he protests with a jovial shrug. 

“Oh, fuck, forgot to mention, it’s possible Eugene handed me the wrong caramels, so,” Molly admits.

“Every goddamn time,” Joel says, tugging just one from his pocket. 

Molly furrows her eyebrows at him.

“Oh I’ll be fine, how strong can one be?” Joel’s chest expands.

Molly laughs and sips more of her beer. 

“You’ll sleep it off,” she comments. 

“Maria got the cat outfit out again this year?” Joel asks. Their shoulders butt together as they lean against the couch, in a way they both hope comes off as companionable. 

“Just the ears. Your brother was whining something about the lack of a tail component and her  _ tail _ being plenty anyway,” Molly shares.

“Disgusting, thank you,” Joel replies.

“Aw c’mon, they seem to sincerely like each other. It’s kinda nice,” she comments.

“Still my brother.” 

“How long they been together?”

“Decade or so, wasn’t here when it happened,” Joel replies. “Maria’s a good woman.”

“Boston?”

“Boston,” he acknowledges, draining the rest of whatever type of fermented syrup was pretending to be a beer. 

“And you met Ellie towards the end of being there?” Molly threads.

“She pulled a knife on me two minutes after meeting me in 2033, yes,” Joel confirms.

Molly snorts.

“So, no different from now, whatsoever,” she observes.

“She’s a better shot than she was,” he agrees.

“Half an inch taller,” he adds, holding out his hand like he’s measuring her height. 

“Sounds just like you sometimes,” Molly remarks uncritically. Joel looks a little taken aback and then smiles gently.

“Plannin’ somethin’ for her sixteenth,” he shares. 

“Yeah?” Molly is flying on the lack of need to prod him to speak. 

“Museum of Science and History, edge of Jackson County. Heard there’s a space capsule, gonna go clear it out this week,” Joel shares.

“That’s her whole thing, yeah?” Molly hadn’t missed her space-oriented fixations, receptive to Ellie’s voluminous knowledge sharing to anyone in range.

“That’n dinosaurs,” he laughs. 

“You surprised she wasn’t behind this?” Molly gestures.

“Always, but she’s too smart to leave the garage open or turn a light on. Maybe not  _ smart _ just…knows better from experience,” Joel couches. He’s not detracting from her, just noting her instincts come from a very earned place.

“She’s a good kid, really,” Molly says, nudging his elbow with hers, still unsure of how much that was to Joel’s credit. She assumed most of it, though. 

“She is,” Joel agrees, his face betraying the internal churning beneath it. 

Molly leans towards the coffee table and snaps the bottle cap off of two more maple beers, carefully collecting them for reuse later. 

She watches the valley while they drink in silence for a few draws, and Joel can’t stop himself from watching her again. The low light is throwing her sharpest features into highlight, and he looks for longer than he should, trying to skip past how her mouth and neck work and doing a poor job. 

Molly feels his eyes on her and turns to meet hazel with blue, cracking a smile.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothin’,” he tries to brush off. 

Molly raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Think I am actually a  _ little _ affected,” he admits reluctantly, finding it the lesser of the two admissions. 

Molly teasingly squints at him, nodding in confirmation. 

Joel finishes his beer. 

“I’m gonna get some rest,” he grumbles, standing stiffly and beginning to saunter towards an open bedroom. 

Molly nods and toes her boots off, resting her legs on the coffee table, still half a beer to go and plenty on her mind. She starts to fiddle with a loose thread on her flannel as she peripherally hears large, male movements as Joel settles in and softly clicks the door behind him. 

* * *

“Molly,” Joel calls quietly. He’s just outside the room she’d picked and has been tapping lightly for around two minutes. The four miscreants that brought them here stand sheepishly, soberly ready behind him, shifting anxiously in yesterday’s clothes. 

“Molly!” he tries a little louder.

“Mmmph—” comes quietly with the sounds of zippers and holsters coming together. Joel smiles down at his feet, careful his profile isn’t visible to the kids.

“You up, then?” he calls, grinning back at them. 

“Mhm,” Molly remarks, shouldering past Joel in the doorway. She’s stunningly put together for a person who hasn’t been conscious more than a minute, betrayed by a yawn. Met by the expectant nervous looks of the teenagers, she pauses.

“Y’all have to share horses. ‘Cause you’re in trouble,” she points at them seriously, shuffling towards the stairs to the garage. Joel watches her with bright eyes throughout, taking up the rear of their group, trailing her all the way to Jackson and unable to worry about Maria’s impending rebuke.

* * *

The next morning, Joel pants, bolts upright in bed, awake and trying to listen around every corner of his house despite the hammering whoosh of blood in his ears. 

He nudges himself aside with the heel of his hand, achingly hard and rolling his eyes at the sensation. Whether it was true exasperation or even slight enjoyment, he was still too recently awake to identify.

It hadn’t been a continuous scene, but a series of escalating flashes. 

He never should have let himself lower his guard enough to watch her riding gait the night before, nor her stride when dismounted. It informed a vivid section of dream space where Molly’s taut stomach flexed and worked over him, taking his cock deep. Her hips moved fluidly, straining over his body as her hands anchored to his chest, fingerprints pressing his skin white. He felt himself cradle her jaw, pushing sweat-soaked hair out of her face as she moved and cracked a pretty, open-mouthed smile at him. 

Joel’s head reels as he settles back against his pillows to contemplate the images rapidly ushering blood to his extremities and back. He sighs and covers his face, mostly at himself, less so at the morning sun lightening the walls of his room.

It didn’t seem to start with him fully hilted in her, but instead with Molly kissing him, surely and unambiguously. She’d tasted so warm, her mouth so welcoming yet insistently guiding them through experimental nips that escalated into outright licking the inside of his mouth. It didn’t matter that it happened as a dream as much as his unconscious self-feeling somewhat vindicated that he wasn’t completely misreading whatever tension they’d accrued in short months. 

Joel throws the covers off, intent on not seeing any of this through, specifically because he can count on her being at the town meeting in a few hours. Halfway down the stairs, he registers that he hasn’t put a shirt on and an impression of Molly tearing his off intrudes as he retreats to find one before trying to forcibly shake his brain clear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never been beta read in my life! Sorry this is ~3 months late, it was winter and I intimidated my own self. ~10/15 chapters planned at this point, I just gotta write 'em! 
> 
> xoxo


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